The Pariah

by Anthony Ryan

  “Are you here, Hostler?” I asked in a tired groan, resting my head against the rough bark of the tree. “If so, I’m sorry. For all of it. Not just the killing you bit, but you having to suffer this bastard’s company for so long.” I delivered a hard kick to the chainsman’s corpse, which had the beneficial effect of causing his staring face to loll to one side, spilling the pooled blood in a thick cascade.

  “You have to admit, though,” I went on, a faint smile creeping over my lips, “it’s all somewhat ironic. I mean, you spent your life grovelling to the Martyrs and the Seraphile expecting they would let you walk straight through the Portals when the time came. Instead, for years your soul ends up shackled to an evil fucker like him.”

  The thought summoned a laugh to my lips, one that continued for far longer than it should considering my plight. When it finally faded and I blinked mirth-moistened eyes, I found that the first gleam of dawn had caught the web of branches above.

  “Sorry,” I told Hostler again. “Never could resist taunting you, could I?”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  She stood wreathed in the wispy tendrils of the chainsman’s fire, a slim, green-cloaked figure, sack-covered head tilted at a curious angle. Her voice was formed of the clean, lightly accented tones I recalled from when she allowed her artifice to slip after healing Brewer.

  “An old friend,” I told her. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.” She came closer, pausing only briefly to spare a glance for the chainsman’s corpse. As she passed from view, my senses were assailed by the floral scents of summer I remembered from our last meeting. It was enough to convince me she was truly here and not the conjuration of my desperately hopeful mind.

  The keys jangled and I felt the brush of her fingers on my wrists before the chains fell away. I slumped forwards, groaning in relief at the sudden absence of constriction, my deep breaths bringing an ache to my chest. When I looked up the Sack Witch had taken a seat beside the extinguished fire. The small, black diamonds of her eyes were fixed on the dead man at my feet and the voice that emerged from her sack was faint with reflection.

  “He had been looking for me these past few years. Strange to think he only had to sit here and wait.”

  “Doenlisch,” I said, which had the effect of drawing her gaze to me. “That’s your name, isn’t it? Your true name.”

  The question appeared to arouse only the faintest interest and her cloak barely shifted at her shrug. “It is a name. I have several, as do you.”

  “It sounded more like a title,” I persisted, teeth gritted as I rubbed at chafed wrists. “What does it mean?”

  “You will find its meaning in the book I gave you.” I detected a very small note of humour in her voice and knew there must be a smile behind the weave of her sack. “Didn’t you think to look?”

  “I’ve been busy,” I replied with sullen gruffness, grunting as I used the tree trunk to lever myself upright.

  She watched me move away from the chainsman’s body, humour once again showing in her tone when she said, “They’re all gone, the spirits that assailed him in life.”

  “You could see them too?”

  “No, but I would know if they were here.”

  I nodded, meeting her blank eyes. “It’s good to see you again,” I said, surprised that I meant it. “I’ve also been looking for you, in fact.”

  The sack creased a little, but she continued to sit in silent observance of my fumbling attempts to frame my request. Fortunately, the Sack Witch spared me the effort.

  “You have something for me,” she stated.

  Of course, I knew what she meant. The Caerith book was a hard, uncomfortable bulk at my side, one the chainsman had missed in his hunger to secure my end. But, for all the irritation it had caused me, the thought of parting with it summoned an unaccustomed depth of reluctance. While I had spent a good deal of my life in pursuit of other people’s possessions, I had never truly treasured any of my own. The loss of what few keepsakes I had collected pained me not at all, given the ill luck they seemed to bring. This book was very different, for its value was incalculable.

  “So,” I said. “This is the price you spoke of.”

  “No. It is payment for the task I already performed, as we agreed. The price to come will be far higher, it being equal to the task you require of me.”

  “And what is that?”

  The diamond eyes narrowed as she leaned forward. “Stop attempting to distract me.” She extended a hand, palm open and expectant. “Give me the book and the means to decipher it or I will leave, and we shall never set eyes on one another again.”

  I would be a liar if I said I gave it over with no hesitation. That I reached into my jerkin and tore the book free, kneeling as I proffered it to the Sack Witch, promising I would give her anything she asked if she would only save Evadine’s life. But I did not.

  I stood with my face set in a mask of poorly suppressed anger, thoughts churning with all manner of justifications that would permit me to walk away from this meeting. I would journey to a different port, find a ship and sail away, seek out a nice, quiet corner of some far-off land where I would compose my own translation. Thus armed with a map to the course of my life, a long one given the denseness of the text, I imagined in my youthful folly that I had naught but years of ease ahead of me. Evadine would soon perish, but did she not lust for martyrdom? Had her punitive commands not already brought me to the grave’s edge?

  My anger arose not just from pique at losing the book, but also a severe depth of self-reproach that I hadn’t yet deciphered a single word of it. I told myself it was due to lack of time during the voyage from Olversahl, and the days since had been equally fraught. But these were lies. Since learning of its true nature, I had hardly touched the book except to strap it to my side. Although I couldn’t admit it, the prospect of discovering what had been set down on those pages scared me. In time I may have summoned the nerve to open it, but time was gone now.

  “Did you know?” I asked the Sack Witch, voice curt as I tugged the book free of its bindings. Berrine’s guide to translation was affixed to it with a cord and I saw how the Sack Witch’s fingers played over it as I placed both volumes in her hands. I couldn’t tell if it was due to fear or nervous delight. “What it is,” I pressed as she consigned the books to her satchel. “Did you know?”

  “I knew it would have great value for you, and for me. That is how it must be if the balance is to be shifted from death to life. The… nature of what I do has a structure, a web you could say, one that cannot be reordered by such mundanities as material wealth. To alter it requires something real, something of the soul and the heart.”

  “You’re in those pages too, aren’t you? And not just today, or when we met before. That’s why you want it. The next time we meet all the advantages will be yours.”

  “The next time we meet…” Her voice dwindled then abruptly rose in a laugh, so loud and unexpected it made me start. “You still think like a thief. Weighing advantage and disadvantage as if this is some manner of game.” She laughed again, the sound smaller now, and considerably more bitter. “If so, then we are two very minor pieces on the board.”

  More mystery to ponder, but I felt no great urge to question her further. I knew she had no answers to give, not now at any rate. Also, I found the book’s sudden absence from my side brought a sense of lightness and urgency rather than resentment at its loss. Still, I couldn’t keep one more question from my lips, for some just have to be asked.

  “Why me?” I asked. “Why did an unknown Caerith scribe from ages past see fit to set down a prophecy of my life? I am just a whore’s bastard made a thief and a murderer because there was no other place for me in this land. I am a pariah to be shunned by churl and noble alike. This land and its people have no use for me, save to earn an ugly death and an unmarked grave fighting their wars.”

  “The life of a pariah can be as meaningful as that of a king,” she replied, her voice softer now
and I discerned a weariness in the way her shoulders slumped. “Every life is significant, but some are… more so. You, it transpires, were the key to unlocking the secrets of this book, and with that key my people will unlock further secrets. We have so many books, all unread since the Fall. Now the precious knowledge they contain will belong to us once more. You should be proud.”

  She straightened, the sackcloth covering her mouth thrumming as she drew in a deep breath. “So, to the task at hand,” she said, getting to her feet.

  I didn’t bother asking how she already knew what I required of her, nor enquire as to the nature of the dire price it entailed. As Raith had said, some paths have to be walked.

  “It’s a fair distance,” I warned. “Take us the rest of the day to reach the port, I’d reckon. And we’ll need to steal a cart along the way. Something to hide you in so we can smuggle you into the lord of exchange’s house. There’s a big crowd of faithful fools sitting vigil for the captain’s recovery. It would be best if they didn’t see…”

  I trailed to dumbfounded silence as she reached up to grip the hem of her sack, drawing it up with a careful slowness. The breeze twisted her hair as the sack came free, concealing her face for a second until it parted to reveal her features in full.

  I could spend the next few pages waxing poetic about the woman I beheld, but it will suffice to say that she was beautiful in a manner I knew to be dangerous. It was the kind of beauty that drives men, and I’d hazard many women, to see another as something to possess, a precious object to be owned and never shared. One glance was enough to convince me she had been wise to wear that sack for so long. Unlike Raith and the chainsman, her face had no pattern of birthmarks. Instead, there was one small red mark in the centre of her brows, resembling a ruby in the way it contrasted with the pale smoothness of her skin.

  “When I first began to travel these lands,” she said, sweeping her tangled tresses back, “I soon realised that your people put far too much stock in appearance. Shall we go?”

  Swain found her a maid’s gown to wear before we led her into the house, completing the disguise with a basket of laundry. Inevitably, she drew more than a few glances from the lord of exchange’s guards and the town watchmen on the gate, but none saw fit to do more than leer. Once through the servants’ entrance, Brewer distracted the other menials with loud demands for clean water for the Anointed Lady while we quickly ushered our visitor up the winding stairs to the bedchamber.

  Ayin greeted our entrance with frowning suspicion. Although normally transfixed by the sight of pretty things, she exhibited no such enchantment upon catching sight of this blonde newcomer.

  “Who’s that?” she demanded, stepping protectively between the stranger and the captain.

  “A friend, Ayin,” I said, gently easing her aside. “Come to help.”

  Ayin’s features, rarely mature at the best of times, bunched into childish disdain and she consented to move only with stiff reluctance. “She smells… strange,” she whispered as I guided her to the window.

  Delric, who had been dozing in a chair beside the bed, snapped to instant wakefulness and proved far more willing to step aside for the Sack Witch. He stared long at the Caerith’s face, though I saw no lust in that gaze, only fear.

  “Can you…?” he began, faltering when the Sack Witch placed a hand on Evadine’s brow. She had fallen to slumber again, the hollows beneath her cheeks darker than ever and her skin grey rather than bleached white.

  The Sack Witch’s lips made a tight line and I saw doubt pass across her features before she withdrew her hand and straightened. “Get out,” she said with a sharp glance at Delric and Ayin. “You,” she added, catching my eye as I ushered a still-truculent Ayin from the room, “need to stay.”

  Remaining in this room, which had abruptly contrived to become a notch or two colder even though the fire still blazed merrily in the hearth, was perhaps the last thing I wanted to do at this juncture. The sense of being at the precipice of a very long drop was strong, but so was the knowledge that as far as any Covenant tribunal would care, all of us had already stained our souls far beyond cleansing.

  Still, I duly pushed Ayin into the hall and closed the door on her scowling face and Delric’s sombre frown. Turning, I found the Sack Witch sloughing off her maid’s garb. She had left her satchel and cloak downstairs in Brewer’s care and wore only a loose shift of cotton. The material was thin enough to reveal much of the body beneath, a sight that would have been arousing but for my increasing pitch of fear. She carried no implements, wore no charms and held no bottles containing marvellous elixirs. Apparently, what would be done here required only her, or so I assumed until she turned and extended a hand to me.

  “A price equal to the task,” she said. “Be sure you’re willing to pay it.”

  I stared at her outstretched hand, my fear rapidly shifting to terror. The fire blazed on but the sudden sweat beading my skin brought a shiver. In that moment I was a child again, as lost and frantic as I had been the day Deckin found me wandering the woods.

  “What…” I began, finding I had to swallow and cough before I could get the words out. “What will you do?”

  “Remake the web that binds this woman to life. Many of the threads have been broken and must be woven anew.” She gave an insistent flex of her fingers. “But they cannot be woven from nothing. For life to be restored, it must be taken.”

  I shuddered, my eyes flicking to the door although my feet had apparently become as one with the floor. I wondered if she had cast some spell to compel me to stillness, but knew this indecision, this cowardice, was mine alone.

  “You didn’t do this with Brewer,” I pointed out in a hoarse, desperate rasp.

  “Remaking his web required that I kill the poison in his veins. This is different.”

  “Will it… kill me?”

  “No.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “Yes.” Her fingers flexed again. “If you do not pay this price she will die before the sun rises.”

  The words forced my gaze towards Evadine’s shrunken, wasted face. Another death to witness. Another killing in truth, for by refusing I would surely kill her. How many had it been now? I had never allowed myself to count them all, but neither could I forget them. The soldier with the Martyr charm that had nearly doomed me. Hostler who had saved me with his lessons but couldn’t save himself. That poor bastard at the Traitors’ Field with my billhook jammed into his face… So many others. What was one more?

  Let the pious noble bitch die! a savage voice chimed in my head, sharp and jagged. Without me she would’ve died twice already. This witch talks of prices to be paid. What price am I owed? And who will ever pay me?

  “I suppose,” I said, a weak smile twisting my lips, “there’s no chance you’ll let me see that book again? I’m sure there’s a page or two relating what I do now.”

  Her lips formed a smile of their own, one that mixed both sadness and sympathy. “You already know what you do. And you know why.”

  Finding I had no more words and my well of resistance had run dry, I stepped forward and took her hand. Her skin was smooth and warm against my rough, calloused palm, a brief and pleasant sensation before her hand gripped mine, the strength of it enough to make me gasp.

  I have attempted many times to recall in detail what happened next, but my mind consents to provide only a few fragments. I remember a numbness creeping along my outstretched arm. Also, although I remained still, the sense of being pulled was strong. My vision blurred as the numbness reached my shoulder and began to spread to my neck and chest. Through the shifting haze I saw the Sack Witch reach out her free hand and clasp it to Evadine’s pale, limp forearm. Then came the pain.

  The years since I have wondered many times whether I would have agreed to her price if the Sack Witch had been more fulsome in describing its nature. Pain is too meagre and piffling a word to describe what I endured in the few thudding beats of my heart before I collapsed into oblivion. Agon
y and torture are similarly inadequate. In fact, to equate it to any other form of physical distress is in many ways redundant. This went beyond the merely physical. I knew even as I fainted that something had been wrenched from the core of my being, something vital. For life to be restored, it must be taken. To perform her task, the Sack Witch had taken something from me that I would never recover. It was only much later that I would fully understand what she had wrought.

  “Alwyn Scribe.”

  I awoke to the sting of grit in my eyes and the feel of dried tears on my face. For a second I experienced the bliss that arises from an absence of pain, but it was brief for my body soon let its grievances be known. It seemed most of my muscles and sinews had been strained to near their limit, my spine being an especially busy nest of fiery cramps. I spent a moment engaged in unmanly shuddering and whimpering until fresh tears cleared the grit from my eyes.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Evadine’s brow, pale but healthy once again, furrowed as she stared down at me. I could only gape at her, distracted by the twin realisations that she stood unaided and was, apart from her bandages, completely naked.

  Her eyebrow arched in judgement as I continued to gape. “You weren’t drinking last night were you?”

  I blinked and managed to paw the tears away with a jerky hand, my gaze roving the bedchamber. “Where is she?”

  “She?”

  “The…” I began before good sense forced its way through my befuddled mind to close my mouth. From Evadine’s baffled face it was clear she had no notion of what had transpired the previous night and I found I had not the courage to tell her. Leave it to Swain, or Wilhum. They’re brave.

  “Ayin,” I croaked. “She was here… before.”

  “Perhaps she went to get help when you collapsed.” Evadine turned away and moved to the window, throwing the shutters wide without a care for any inquisitive eyes beyond. Sunlight outlined her form in white gold as she arched her back, letting out a groan of delight. “Such a glorious day.”

  She stiffened a little then, her hand going to the bandage covering her chest. “Did I dream it, or was I bitten by a wolf?”